Human Bed Warmers Offered at London Hotel

I have to admit that this is one of the strangest news stories I have seen recently, and it the date was the First of April, I would have known it was a joke, but apparently this is the genuine article.

It seems that the Holiday Inn, which has several up market hotels in London, has come up with a novel idea to help guests beat the cold weather that has hit England in the last few weeks. Several members of staff will be made available on demand to serve as human bed warmers to help warm up the beds of guests staying in the hotel.

Apparently the member of staff will be dressed in an all-in-one fleece sleeper suit before slipping between the sheets, but the fact remains, a stranger will still be lying in your hotel bed!

This makes me wonder just how good the insulation and windows are in the hotel, and whether the heaters work at all. Normally hotel rooms will warm up pretty well, but as a prospective guest at this hotel I would debate whether staying there is going to be like sleeping in a barn with the door open.

A number of people that I know, women in particular, are very sensitive as to the cleanliness of a hotel room and especially the bed, pillows and sheets, but to have a stranger lying in them shortly before you yourself are ready to head off to sleep, well I can't see this being too popular.

Ok, so they might be wearing a sleeper suit, but what about their head? Are they going to be wearing a balaclava or a plastic bag over their head so that they don't spread germs on the pillows? What about the body odor? Let's face it, stick someone in a fleece body suit and they are going to sweat. I assume there is some mechanism therefore that allows the body heat to escape into the bed, warming it up, otherwise all this would do is to make very hot and sweaty employees and still leave the guests with a cold bed.

As a man, the thought of an attractive lady warming up my bed before I sleep in it sounds enticing, but what if you selected this option and found that your personal bed warmer was a rather unappealing overweight aging man instead? I think I could see myself sleeping on the floor before I lay down in a bed where I knew they had been.

So, maybe they give you a choice of who to have as your bed warmer, with description and photos. Maybe that would work, but then I think we could be moving into a very dodgy area, and chances are that you could have the vice squad knocking at your door in the middle of the night.

So for me, apart from the fact that I am happily involved with my soul mate, a big "No Thanks" to the Holiday Inn in Kensington on this occasion, even though this service is offered FREE, but full marks for trying to come up with an innovative way to try and beat the cold weather.